Best Buy Offers Mobile Broadband Service

This entry was posted on July 2, 2010 by Pure Mobile.

Electronics retail giant Best Buy wants to get into the cell-phone broadband service. It plans to launch Best Buy Connect brand that will allow store-branded mobile services along with the products it sells. This was posted in the Wall Street Journal, and according to reports, Sprint will be making this foray of Best Buy possible.

The company has already started circulating advertisements. According to the advertisement, cell phone broadband services will start at $29.99, for 250MB of data service, without a contract. The high-end plans include data services of up to 5GB, at a monthly rate of $59.99. Service contracts with lower rates will also be made available. There will a $35 activation fee, but this can be waived, if the user signs for a two-year contract. Another offering by Best Buy is that customers will be given RewardZone points, which they can build up, and use for discounts and other promotional offers at Best Buy.

Reports state that this will not be a full-fledged service, and will be limited to a small segment of devices sold by Best Buy. Laptops equipped with the Qualcomm Gobi chipset will be able to make use of this service. The Gobi chipset laptops can roam on either CDMA or HSPA networks. The service will not provide 4G broadband services, but only 3G.

This move by Best Buy is a strong, logical extension into its endeavors in cellphone broadband services and products. If Best Buy can both sell a 3G laptop and also provide the broadband service, its profit margin will be huge and unprecedented.

Best Buy is looking forward to launching this service as soon as possible. It will be a huge step forward by Best Buy in extending its annual revenue income. As for us, we can only wait and see if this venture is worth it or not.